October 2025
America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
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Letters
I am writing not to address any particular article, but rather to register my concern about the…
The Cambrian Implosion
A historical moment ago, it was too obvious for words, but: Life is a blessing. So to…
Finding Private Roy
By the late 1970s, when I attended public high school in rural, blue-collar Central New York, more…
B. F. Skinner Is Back
In the summer of 1942, Arthur D. Hyde, vice president in charge of research at General Mills,…
Toward a New Humanism
The most pressing question we face today is that of the Psalmist: “What is man?” So urgent…
Zombie Bioethics
A recent article in MIT Technology Review carries the strange title, “Ethically sourced ‘spare’ human bodies could…
Protestants Against the Pill
Ben Jefferies is an Anglican priest who says he knows that one of his parishioners throws away…
A Life Worth Hacking
Earlier this year, I traveled to Texas to spend a few days with a few thousand people…
The Epstein Myth
In March 2005, the Palm Beach police began to investigate whether a fourteen-year-old girl had been molested…
Bring Back Beautiful Sermons
St. Augustine remains the Church’s greatest preacher. A single sermon of his can roam in many directions.…
Contained Controversy
To describe the shifting relationship between religion and art, we must use the broad brush. Judaism and…
Politics for Losers
In a 2002 essay, Christopher Caldwell—perhaps the premier conservative journalist intellectual writing today—paid a memorable compliment to…
Bright Girdle Furled
Light on Darkness restores liturgy to its place at the heart of the medieval world. Like a…
Hegel-Sized
A sense of an ending is in the air, but there’s little consensus about what’s ending or…
Enjoyably Evangelical
Not many people need to write an autobiography—especially not philosophy professors. Not many people who take the…
Briefly Noted
In our world of social media influencers, we are just a click away from seeing twentieth-century social…
The Essential Newman
I first read St. John Henry Newman in 1985, when I was a graduate student at Yale.…
Eugenics Under the Flag of Choice
On August 7, Ross Douthat interviewed Noor Siddiqui on his podcast Interesting Times. Siddiqui is the founder…
Technological Nationalism
Some years ago, I was visiting an acquaintance in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had a few friends over…
While We’re At It
Propaganda: misleading and biased portrayal of facts, often used to inculcate and reinforce an ideology or political…
Madonna and Child
First Place — 2025 First Things Poetry Prize
Not Versed in Country Things
Second Place — 2025 First Things Poetry Prize
For the Finders of Bodies in Murder Mysteries
Pray for her now, the cleaner arriving at dawn, unlocking, humming idly as she dusts till a…
Staying Put
Late autumn dusk, the hock-cart drawing near, The time of year and day becoming one As all…
